Our holdings include hundreds of glass and film negatives/transparencies that we've scanned ourselves; in addition, many other photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs) in the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) They are adjusted, restored and reworked by your webmaster in accordance with his aesthetic sensibilities before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here. All of these images (including "derivative works") are protected by copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions and may not be sold, reproduced or otherwise used for commercial purposes without permission.

This photo is the first that I've seen that shows how (concrete?) blocks have been added to the perimeter of the top course in order to raise the gas pressure. These gasometers, or gas holders, acted like an inverted tin can in a bowl of water. More weight on top would cause an increase of pressure of the gas inside. As the gas was consumed, the inverted "can" would ride the guide rails and slowly descend.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo archive featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1960s. (Available as fine-art prints from the Shorpy Archive.) The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.